Sunday, 29 March 2015

O living flame of love

O searing, are you sweet;
O wound, are you delight
from such a hand.
Your mortal touch of heat
sets dying life alight,
all debt thus banned.

Now deep, where feeling dwelt
in caverns blind, obscure,
shine lamps of fire !
In warmth let them be felt,
and lovely light be pure
for their Desire.

Where good and glory rest
Your secret breathings wake
from sleep and move,
so gentle in my breast,
by tender pains to make
me fall in love.

St John of the Cross ODC 1542-1591English translation and adaptation by Mark Woodruff (c) June 1999.This is a compact version of a fuller translation with another line in each stanza from 1998 that I am revising still. It goes with a musical setting that I have also been written, but the verses are more poem than hymn.

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Welcome

Welcome to Mark Woodruff's homepage - for his writings and thinking on Social Development and Civil Society, Christian Unity, Church history and theology, various essays and addresses, and some of his music from over the years.

Gradually the present rudimentary form of the collection will be overcome.